Investment in CCS demonstrator for 2020

Published Friday, April 30, 2010

In the UK the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) is starting the search for organisations or consortia to bid for a major project which could establish an advanced CO2 Capture Technology demonstration project.

In the UK the Energy Technologies Institute (ETI) is starting the search for organisations or consortia to bid for a major project which could establish an advanced CO2 Capture Technology demonstration project.

The proposed project would see the development of world-leading next generation capture technology to a stage where it has completed full scale demonstration by 2015 and ready for adoption into full scale commercial power applications by 2020.

Bidders will need to demonstrate and justify how their approach would enable their technology to reach a state of development that would allow future investors to start engineering the design of a power station using this next generation technology in 2015, with operation commencing in 2020.

The ETI has already completed an extensive analysis of likely future UK requirements for new build and CCS retrofit power generation and the intention is to seek detailed and specific proposals for a technology validation and demonstration programme of a particular approach to new build coal with CCS as part of its wider portfolio of CCS developments.

ETI Chief Executive Dr David Clarke said: “Power Generation accounts for approximately a third of the UK’s CO2 emissions or 180 million tonnes of CO2 a year. Capturing and storing that carbon could reduce emissions from fossil fuel power stations by as much as 90per cent.

“Capturing the CO2 emissions from fossil-fuelled power stations using the technologies currently available can increase the capital costs of a new power station by between 50 and 100 per cent and significantly reduce power output or increase fuel consumption.

“Developing capture technologies that cost less and have less impact on performance will significantly enhance the potential for wide-scale roll out of CCS in the UK.

“This project would enable the technology to catch the “second wave” of CCS implementation in the 2020s following on from the first phase of plants expected to be built between 2015 and 2020 as part of the Department for Energy and Climate Change’s demonstration projects.”